You can take your hands off the wheel for brief periods, but the car will nag you to put your hands back on the wheel.
Great writing.Overview
I have a RWD Extended Range Premium Mach E.
This was a pretty hard test for the Mach E. We drove from suburban MD to the Bryce Ski Resort in Virginia, which was about 115 miles round trip. We did some local trips in Virginia (including going to a Wal Mart to charge). We had 5 people in the car – 4 adults and 1 child, and the trunk and frunk were packed with stuff for our ski trip. We rented skis so we didn’t have to worry about those, at least. The temperature varied from 20F to 35F. It was either cloudy or freezing rain.
Our total trip was 332 miles with 7 hours 30 minutes of driving time. We averaged 2.7 mi/kWh. 18% of the power went to climate use, 74% to the route, 4% to accessories, and 5% to ext temp.
Ice and mud. But mostly ice.
Even with all the ice, everything on the car (doors, windows, motorized mirrors, etc) worked fine.
Comfort + Space
Everyone was comfortable on the trip. Those in the back seat were impressed with the shoulder room. Leg room was good too, although the center person had to deal with the air vents. He also snapped off the USB charger that was plugged into the center; probably best not to use the back USB ports if someone is going to sit in the middle.
We had to bring a lot of stuff on the trip. Due to COVID the condos weren’t providing blankets, so we had to bring those in addition to all the regular winter gear and food. The frunk came in especially handy on the way back – we took off muddy boots and snow pants and threw them up there.
One weird thing about the trunk – it holds more than you think. There’s the base of the trunk, and the last 3” are hard plastic. I assumed you couldn’t put stuff on that black plastic, but it turns out you can. That gave more room.
Self-Driving
The self-driving was amazing. I had it on for maybe 80% of the miles, and it did really well, even in the perpetual construction zone on I-66. Seriously – the car did a better job picking out where the lanes were supposed to go than I did in places. The adaptive cruise control was really smooth and made the traffic on 66 more bearable.
Charging
There was no practical way to charge at our condo (could have brought an extension cord and ran it out the kitchen window, but that seemed silly), so our plan was:
This basically worked, although we did a lot more driving around the resort than we expected. We hit up a free charger in Woodstock VA for a while and walked around in the freezing rain, but the only shop that was open was the ice cream parlor. Just what you want when it’s 30 and freezing rain!
- Charge to 100% at home
- Stop at the Wal-Mart in Woodstock VA, get a few final groceries, and charge at the EA chargers there
- Drive around the ski resort for a few days.
- On the way home, charge either at the Wal-Mart or at the Sheetz just north of I-66.
The EA chargers were wonky. In theory you plug in, the car talks to the charger, and it just starts working. Not so much. One at Wal-Mart refuse to work at all. A second one kept shutting off after 5 to 10 minutes. The third worked fine. At Sheetz, the first two I tried didn’t work at all. I called support and they directed me to a slower (150kw) charger that worked recently. It worked with a credit card but refused to use the Ford App.
It turns out I didn’t even need to charge at Sheetz. I was at 49% with a displayed range of 89 miles (and it was about 95 miles home). I charged to 65%, and got home with the battery at 30%. But I’m glad I did – eliminated range anxiety or getting off of 66 to use one of the many chargers in NoVa.
This is what you're supposed to see when you plug in.
80% cliff. Was doing 80 kW at around 70% charge.
The numbers on these screens don't always add up -- I usually hit 80% earlier than predicted.
Handling/Acceleration
The main interstates were not slippery, so I kept at or a little above the speed limit most of the time. The car isn’t the fastest, but when I needed to accelerate from 70 mph to 80 for a left merge, it was easy.
Handling on icy windy country roads was good too, even with the stock tires. Traction control only kicked in once or twice, and I didn’t have a problem giving too much torque to the rear wheels and spinning them.
Isn't DCFC considered level 3?
There is no such thing as Level 3 charging.
Technically, there is no such thing as level 3. Many people have taken to calling DCFC "level 3" because they are more familiar with AC level 1 and 2, and 3 is the natural progression. The DCFC connection is called CCS-1 here in the US, and it is basically a J1772 plug with 2 more connections underneath it. Those extra 2 connections are the DC power connections. Cars that accept that connector typically have a flap that covers the 2 extra pins when you're doing AC level 1 or 2 charging with a J1772, and you have to fold the flap down in order to plug in the larger CCS1 connector to DCFC. If a car doesn't have those extra pins under the J1772 it cannot accept DC charging and there is no adapter that will allow the car to accept DC power.
